


Abendrot

by Cyhyr



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Always a ciswoman Ignis, Childbirth, Discussion of Abortion, Other, Pregnancy, she/her pronouns for Ignis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 01:29:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15719130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyhyr/pseuds/Cyhyr
Summary: Ignis is prepared for anything.Pregnancy does not count.





	Abendrot

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I can write Gen or OT4 for these guys. There is no in-between.
> 
> Also I have a problem with mpreg outside of an a/b/o setting (even then... *shudder*) so Ignis became a girl.
> 
> I don't remember much of my own labor, so that's probably not accurate. But! There's some *based on true events* scenes in here, courtesy of me and my sister-in-law's pregnancy stories.
> 
> MCATs are a thing to get into Insomnia's medical program. I don't make the rules.
> 
> Also, in naming the child, I completely forgot about the existence of the Vesperpool? Just run with it.
> 
> A fill for the kinkmeme  
> https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/5690.html?thread=10626362#cmt10626362

**1st Trimester**

Ignis was never late. Not to work, not to dates, and definitely not with her timed bodily functions. But, here she sat, staring at her underwear and justifying the clean pad when she should have at least spotted overnight. She showered and continued with her morning. It must be the increase of stress over the past two weeks. Certainly it would start later today; she’d never been off by more than a few hours. By lunch it will have come. She packed a few pads in her bag and continued with her routine by waking her men and getting breakfast ready.

Lunch came and went and still her pads were white. 

Days came and went and she still hadn’t had her period.

After five days, Prompto came up to her while she was making dinner. “Hey, so, I wanted to ask if you needed anything. Like, ice cream, or a chocolate bar, or whatever.”

“Hmm?”

“Well, it’s been a month?”

“Oh, that. Yes, I could. I…”

She was at a loss. She thought about ice cream and chocolate and her stomach turned. It didn’t sound nearly as appetizing as it would normally during this week. But if she really thought about it…

“Actually, Prompto, could you go pick up some carrots and grapes?”

“Sure! I’ll run down to the store right now!” He grabbed his wallet and phone, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving. She smiled as he skipped away, always endeared by Prompto’s thoughtfulness about her time of the month. 

And it was as she was picking up the cheese to add to the sauce that her stomach cramped. A light sigh of relief escaped her lips, and she called Gladio over to finish off dinner while she went to the bathroom. But again, her pad was clean, and her stomach continued to cramp as she sat. She doubled over and breathed through the worst of it, a headache beginning to throb in her temples. She placed her glasses on the sink and rubbed her eyes.

These were not her usual period cramps. They were too high in her belly.

Fifteen minutes later, a light knock came on the door. “Iggy, you okay in there?”

“I’m fine, Gladio.”

“Dinner’s ready.”

“Go ahead and start without me.”

Gladio left with one more knock on the door. Ignis gave herself five more minutes, but once it was clear nothing was going to happen she pulled up her pants and flushed. She joined the men at the table and glared at Noctis until he took two pieces of broccoli with a huff. She looked at the pasta bake and took a small helping, but was much more interested in the broccoli.

“Oh, babe, I put your carrots and grapes in the fridge,” Prompto said around a mouthful of pasta. “Want me to grab them?”

“Yes, please.” Ignis managed to not moan at the thought, but couldn’t hold it in once she snapped the first bite of carrot. She made it through another carrot and turned on the grapes before she noticed the other three staring. Noctis’s cheeks were dusted pink as he mindlessly brought a forkful of broccoli to his mouth. Gladio was more leering than staring, and Prompto was just wide-eyed. She swallowed her grape before asking, “Everything alright?”

“Just never heard that moan outside the bedroom,” Gladio said.

The other two nodded quickly, and Ignis shrugged. “I’m allowed to enjoy my food.”

“You’re allowed to enjoy _anything_ that makes you moan like that,” Prompto said.

* * *

 

Ignis rested her forehead on the cool wood of her desk. The stomach cramps hadn’t let up in almost half an hour; she couldn’t work like this! She still had forty minutes before leaving for the doctor’s appointment she’d made yesterday after spending the two hours scheduled for a date with Gladio instead stuck in the bathroom, waiting for vomit that would not come. She had apologized profusely, but Gladio had only insisted that she see a doctor and take care of herself instead. Now she was stuck in her office when she should be in a meeting with the council helping Noctis understand what was going on with the country he was to inherit. 

Later, sitting on the bench in the physician’s room, she sat dumbfounded. _Pregnant._

In three weeks she would receive her first sonogram and a due date. In that time she would have to find a way to tell her three boyfriends that one of them was to be a father, or come to the decision to abort. She was told to begin on a prenatal multivitamin regardless and to take laxatives for the cramps, to stay away from deli meat and to cook her meat to medium or more well-done. 

Probably with good intentions, the nurse who made her next appointments smiled as she reminded Ignis to eat well and take care of her body. “It’s not just yours anymore!”

“Just because a parasite containing half my genetic material has attached itself to my uterine wall does not mean my body is not mine to do with as I please,” she snapped, taking her appointment card and leaving the waiting room tensely quiet.

* * *

 

Prompto was pressed up tight to her back, his nose buried in her hair. It was the middle of the night and _of course_ the parasite would need to make sure she remembered its presence. Whoever called it morning sickness was horribly wrong as it came and pleased as it went. The book she got said _the nausea_ would generally last only through the first trimester, but Ignis lay there surrounded by her lovers and her stomach cramped and gurgled and wished for something as sweet as nausea.

She bit her lip and clutched Noctis tighter in her arms.

What if this _didn’t_ stop in another month and a half?

Three days later, she cleared her throat at dinner and told them. To say they were surprised was… actually an exaggeration.

“So I’ll need to get my Dad to move us to an apartment with another bedroom?”

“When’s the ultrasound? Don’t tell me we missed it!”

“Iris is gonna be so pumped to be an aunt.”

Ignis shook her head and turned back to her food, relieved that her men would take such life-changing news easily. But that did bring up the slight problem… 

“I was actually considering abortion,” she said. “We’re all so young, do any of you truly feel ready for such a life-long commitment?”

The men were silent, subdued, like abortion hadn’t been a thought in any of their minds. While it warmed her heart to see her lovers take joy in the possibility of a child–of _their_ child–this was still a serious issue. And, still, they also needed to address the other monster on the horizon.

“In addition,” she continued, “It’s common knowledge that the four of us are in a relationship, and Noct, with the chance that the child is yours, there will likely be political ramifications for having this child out of wedlock.”

“Well, that’s easy enough to figure out,” Prompto said, “We’ll just test if Noct is the bio-daddy and go from there!”  
“Yeah, but if it _is_ the princess’s, he and Iggy might be pushed to get married,” Gladio pointed out. “And they’ll be expected to be exclusive.”

“Oh. That…”

“So we just assume that it’s not mine,” Noct said. Everyone was silent for a minute, seeming to agree, but then he continued, “But it’s your decision, Iggy. We’ll find a way to make it work, to make a family for the kid, if you want to keep it.”

“Yeah!”

“And we’ll help you if you decide to abort,” Gladio added, nodding. “We still love you regardless.”

And Ignis just nodded, not trusting her voice to remain steady should she thank her men for their sensitivity and understanding. Prompto leaned over and hugged her, kissed her cheek, and they all went back to eating. 

* * *

 

All of her lovers asked to be at the first sonogram, so there she lay while the technician was out looking for a third chair even when Gladio tried to say he’d be fine to stand. Prompto and Noctis were sitting by her side. No one spoke, but she could tell they were all excited to see the embryo. Especially since she had told them that, if it was in position, arm and leg nubs would be visible. It may even move, though any movements would be involuntary sparks of a growing nervous system.

“Alright, I found one!” The technician brought the chair in the dark room and sat it beside Noctis’s. Gladio took the seat with a quick thanks while Prompto scooted closer to Ignis and took her hand. “It’s really wonderful you have a support system in place already,” she continued, preparing Ignis’s skin for the wand. “And with the chance of the baby being a little prince or princess!”

“When do we find that one out?” Prompto asked, unable to keep a smile off his face.

Both the technician and Ignis replied, “Between 18 and 20 weeks.” 

“Let’s just wish for healthy, guys,” Gladio said. 

“Yeah, but we need to think about names and nursery colors and–”

“Prom, she’s not even sure if she’s keeping it yet,” Noctis grumbled. “Cool your jets until she makes a decision.”

“There’s the little one, look at them go,” the technician said, and all other conversation stalled. On the screen, the weird alien embryo wriggled and shifted. Ignis bit her lip while the technician went on about length, pointing out the arm and leg nubs, taking stills and then continuing on her work.

She stayed still and quiet while the men cooed at the embryo.

Then it was over and a cloth was in her hand. She absently wiped at the gel on her belly, then fixed her clothes and went to the bathroom. After flushing and washing her hands, she braced herself on the sink and looked down. “I understand now why the doctor said to forgo the sonogram should I come to the decision to abort,” she said. “How could I look them in the eye and say I want to get rid of you?” She sighed, looked at her reflection, and then left the room.

Prompto and Gladio were both staring at prints of the embryo, comparing this and that angle between the bunch of pictures they had and pointing out arms and legs and eyes. Noctis was trying to not look interested, but he even glanced over Prompto’s shoulder every so often. She got their attention and led the way back to the waiting room, and then continued on alone to see the doctor, her decision made.

* * *

 

“Gladiolus.”

Gladio hummed, hunched over and eating right out of the fridge. It was the middle of the night, and Ignis was supposed to be sleeping with the other two, but cravings came and went as they pleased.

“Are you eating my carrots?”

He froze, the snap of the orange vegetable answering the question for him. He stepped out of the light of the fridge and turned around to face his girlfriend. She had shrugged on a bathrobe and it lay loosely tied around her body, the whole of her cleavage on show. Her hair was a sleepy mess but she glared like she’d been awake for hours. Gladio swallowed down the bite of carrot and any lewd comments he could make on her sleepy appearance before saying, “Baby, of course I would never eat _all_ of your carrots.”

“ _Gladio_ -”

“Baby, Baby, you need those carrots for our baby,” Gladio said, trying to placate her. He put his arms around her waist and kissed her hair. “I only ate two bites. You and the little one have plenty, and if you need more I’ll get you what you need.”

Ignis rested her temple on Gladio’s bare chest and huffed. “You and the other two are lucky I love you.” She then glared back up at him and said, “Don’t touch my carrots again.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

* * *

 

“I just don’t understand,” Noctis said, still standing in the kitchen where Ignis had left him after the thorough tongue-lashing she gave him. Gladio stood by the table, also shellshocked; Prompto had gone with Ignis back to the market. “She asked for grapes, I got grapes!”

“Pregnancy, Noct. The baby wants what it wants, and it wanted a different kind of grape.”

Noctis put the offensive bag of red grapes into the fridge with a huff. “How long do we have before cravings go away?”

Gladio winced. “Sometimes they’ll taper off by the third trimester.”

“Sometimes?”

“Most of the time, it keeps up until the baby’s out.”

Noctis slumped and sat at the table. “Maybe we’re not ready for this.”

Gladio sat beside him and kissed the top of his head. “I’m sure she feels just as bad for yelling. You forget that this loss of control is havoc on her, too. But ultimately, it was her choice to keep it. And we’re all in this together.”

Noctis leaned over and rested on Gladio’s shoulder. Later, Ignis and Prompto came home with an empty basket that clearly had once had the _right_ grapes in them. Ignis took Noct aside and apologized profusely, falling apart into tears halfway into her rehearsed words because, “By the Six, I _hate_ what this thing is doing to my hormones like I don’t have any control over myself anymore, I’m so sorry Noct.”

Just as Gladio said, Noct thought and easily forgave her with a tight hug. 

* * *

 

**2nd Trimester**

“This is horrible, why would anyone wish this upon their own body?”

Prompto leaned down to press a kiss to Ignis’s temple before whisking away the warmed ice packs. Over his shoulder he said, “I don’t know, Babe. But if anyone can survive it, you can.”

“I don’t want to _survive_ it. I just want to get to the part that the books say is somewhat enjoyable.”

“Which part is that?” Prompto asked as he put his hands on her hips and let them warm up. 

“Apparently, the whole second trimester is where most women cite having the best experience while pregnant.”

“Iggy, you’re fifteen weeks.”

“I’m aware,” she seethed. She closed her eyes and sighed, “I’m sorry, Prompto. None of you deserve my frustration. You’ve all been nothing but wonderful, doting partners.”

“More wonderful and doting than usual?” Prompto smiled.

It was enough to drag a huff of laughter from Ignis. “And so much more humble.” They laughed together, and Prompto leaned over to kiss her forehead, her eyes, her nose.

“I’m happy you decided to keep the baby,” he whispered.

“You might not in a half hour,” Ignis winced.

“Bathroom break?”

“Actually, I… well, yes, but after that I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Sous Chef Prompto, at your service!”

Later, Gladio, Noctis, and Prompto all poked at their plates, each with a portion of raw cut carrots, vegetable fried rice, and steamed white fish. While normally Ignis’s cooking was superb and flavorful, even Prompto couldn’t find it in himself to eat more than two bites. Everything was bland, not even salt or pepper, and Ignis was always silently insulted if they tried to season their food themselves. 

But even if the food had been palatable, they kept stealing glances at Ignis’s plate. Everything on it was smothered in a heap of canned fruit cocktail. The bowl of cocktail was sitting on the table for everyone to serve themselves, and that was a relief for the men who didn’t think they’d be able to even try dinner if Ignis had plated their meals similarly to her own. 

Ignis was clearly enjoying her concoction, though.

They silently agreed to order a pizza later.

* * *

 

“So, when do we get to have sex with you again?”

“When I can sleep in whichever position I want and not have the fetus dictate everything to do with my body.”

“That’s fair.”

The issue was never brought up again.

* * *

 

“Hey Specs, where’s the TV remote?”

Ignis stopped typing her report and froze. Gladio, across the table, and Prompto, on the couch, both tensed for either a hormone-driven fury or break down. But instead, she stood up and went to the freezer, opened it, and groaned. She closed the door with the remote in her hand, and meekly walked it over to Noct. 

He just laughed, pulled her in for a hug, and nuzzled her hair. “Didn’t know that the batteries needed to be frozen for best use,” he said.

“Shut up, Noct.”

He kissed her, rubbed one hand down her belly, and then sank to his knees before her. “You in there, be nice to your mother, and let her think, okay? It’s kind of her thing.”

She went back to her work with a smile on her face and a palm on her bump and Noctis and Prompto cuddled up for a TV binge.

* * *

 

Ignis clenched her hands on the steering wheel while Gladio and Noctis discussed the results of her latest sonogram in the back seat. Prompto clearly wanted to add to their conversation but he was also the only one who could see her mouth and eyes, tight and tense and holding back her words with every ounce of willpower her hormones let her keep. Instead, he sat still with his hands on his lap and glanced at Noct and Gladio in his visor’s mirror every few seconds.

“We’re having a _girl_.”

“So? Girls can enjoy the outdoors. I still vote for a woodland nursery.”

“Why can’t we just paint it yellow and call it done? Why do we need a theme?”

“Because people will want to buy stuff for her baby shower and a theme makes sure everything we get will kind of go together.”

“Wait, do we have to be at the baby shower? I thought that was a girl thing.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“Both of you, be _quiet_ ,” Ignis finally snapped. The car fell silent and she turned onto a side road, parked the car on the street, and put her head on the wheel. No one commented. A minute later, and she picked her head up, took a deep breath, and said, “I would like a few days to process. In the meantime, you all are welcome to discuss the sex of the fetus amongst yourselves but not in my presence.”

She pulled out of her parking spot and continued home. No one spoke the rest of the ride.

Days later, she and Noctis were cleaning up from dinner. She braced herself on the counter and waited the few seconds that it took for her boyfriend to notice and embrace her, then spoke. “I was hoping for a surprise,” she admitted.

Noctis froze, then whispered, “Shit, Specs, I’m sorry.”

“The three of you have been wonderfully careful to let me run this pregnancy my way and suddenly I was just overruled–”

“No, hold on. You’re right, we didn’t listen to you–Prompto, Gladio, get in here!–and we, well, we can’t make it right, but we’ve gotta do something…”

Prompto and Gladio came into the kitchen and didn’t even wait to be invited into the hug, just made sure that the night ended well and everyone was finally happy. 

* * *

 

**3rd Trimester**

Ignis was, to say the least, nesting. Just last week the King stopped her after a meeting and asked if they would need a larger apartment and while it had been discussed and agreed upon among her partners, in the moment the thought of leaving her home so close to her due date made her nauseous. Though, thankfully, not nauseous enough to vomit upon His Majesty’s shoes, it was enough for her to quickly decline and say that the room they had set aside as a guest room would become the nursery instead. The King had chuckled, agreeing with her when she continued that they wouldn’t be housing overnight guests with a newborn anyway.

But that left the men to clear out the room of nonessential furniture, paint the walls the agreed-upon hue, and assemble the crib, changing table, and wardrobe. With two and a half months to go, they weren’t initially worried about the time it would take. And then, every day, Ignis would come home, go into the nursery, and stare at it for an hour trying to come up with the best orientation of furniture and monitor cameras and toys. 

Two weeks later, Ignis came home and changed into old, ratty clothes, and the men jumped to stop her from opening the paint.

“Prom, take her for a walk.”

“I’m not an invalid and the paint we chose has no fumes.”

“We’ll get this place baby-ready in no time.”

“Gladiolus, Noctis, please just let me do this.”

“C’mon, Babe, it’s market day anyway,” Prompto said, easing her back into their room. “Put your rags away and we’ll go get you some celery.”

Ignis just groaned. “How do you always _know_ exactly what I’m craving?”

They went to market and came back with plenty of groceries; the room was painted and the crib had been assembled, but the bed not made up. Ignis was about to fume that they’d left the crib bare when Gladio added to their list of accomplishments, “We thought you’d like to make up her room once it’s ready. That you’d like to fuss with the blankets and sheets and pillows and whatnot, get it to just how you like it. Besides, a baby’s room needs a mother’s touch.”

And just like that, Ignis was sniffling back tears. Through the pile of arms she found herself in, she managed to muffle out, “Plenty of wonderful nurseries are put together by men every day.”

“Yeah,” Noct said, “but our baby’s nursery gets their mother’s final say.”

After that, Ignis spent her time at home in the pale yellow room with white furniture, folding the boxes of baby clothes that they’d received as gifts and sorting out which toys would stay in the room and which would go in a basket by the couch. She moved diapers and wipes and the spray bottle around the changing table at least five times before she noticed that it was back in the same configuration that Noctis had first set up. 

And when she wasn’t cleaning or moving something around, she sat in her rocking chair, a comfortable plush navy blue chair with an ottoman that would rock with her, and looked out at the room while resting her hands on her kicking bump.

To the air, she tried out different names, ones the boys had picked out and were fighting over when they thought she wasn’t paying attention. Sofia, for Prompto. Amaryllis, for Gladio. Elysia, for Noct. Names she wouldn’t have even considered if she hadn’t heard them mentioned and discussed. Amaya, Daisy, Aurora, Genevieve, Ira, Violet, Solara, Vesper–

That’s it. That’s the one.

“Vesper,” she whispered. It sounded right. She looked down at the bulge of her stomach and said, “What do you think, little one? Vesper?”

Reasonably, she knew that the kicks meant nothing. The fetus did not have any way to process spoken language yet, and either way her words would be incomprehensible within the confines of her uterus. But the way it–she–kicked rapidly happened to coincide with the question, and Ignis smiled. She stood up and went out into the living room where her partners waited for her nesting session to be done for the day, and they all had smiles when they saw her.

“Vesper,” she told them. “I’d like to call her Vesper.”

They all agreed it was perfect.

* * *

 

“So, we’re taking a week at Caem to have one last vacation before the baby makes vacations difficult for a while.”

“Noctis, I understand the desire, but within a month of Ignis’s due date?” King Regis frowned.

“Your Majesty, my obstetrician has approved the trip, so long as I use the holiday to rest and relax”

“Let them go,” Clarus said. “They’re not kids anymore, and they seem to know what they’re doing. Well, at least Ignis knows what’s going on, but I doubt this girl hasn’t ever not known what was going on in her own life.”

She grinned. “Thank you, Lord Amicitia.”

He waved her off. “Please, Ignis. There’s a chance you’re carrying my biological grandchild and certainly by all rights you are. Clarus is fine,” he looked at Prompto and Noctis by her side and continued, “and that goes for you two, too.”

King Regis waved his hand through the air and said, “Yes, yes. Go, enjoy yourselves. You’ll have Gladiolus, of course, I know he’ll keep you all safe.”

Prompto visibly restrained himself from punching the air and instead just bounced in place. The four of them bowed quickly, and then excused themselves. While they’d told the King that they would leave once they were packed, Noctis neglected to mention that they’d been packed for two days now, as per Ignis’s request that they have a few days to be sure they had everything. So once they stepped outside and filed into the car they would be borrowing for the week, they were off to Cape Caem.

“Babymoon, here we come!”

“And without ever having a honeymoon.”

“Gladio, I’m sure you meant that as a joke, but do try not to bring the mood down.”

“We could totally treat it like a honeymoon,” Noct said, looking back at Ignis and Gladio in the backseat. “I’ll bet we could find someone to–”

“Noctis Lucis Caelum you will not finish that sentence. You would place the rest of us in an early grave should your father not get to experience his only child’s wedding.” Laughter rang through the car and they kept on their way.

* * *

 

As per her obstetrician’s orders, Ignis was taking the time away to rest, even going so far as to tell her boyfriends to enjoy the ocean while she enjoyed the peace and quiet. The three men all tried to argue and say that it was her vacation, too, but Ignis waved them off and reminded them that peace and quiet only exists in bursts around a newborn. 

Finally, with towels in hand, they left her in the lighthouse’s apartment. 

At first she propped herself against the headboard, surrounded herself with pillows, and read a book Gladiolus had suggested. Half an hour into that, though, the fetus began shifting and rolling around in her belly. She tried to get comfortable but then the ache and cramps like one of her worst periods bowled into her and had her gasping and holding the bump.

_They’re just fake contractions. Braxton Hicks. Vesper, little one, you need to incubate a little longer._

An hour later, the contractions were still coming and they were lasting for over a minute, six minutes apart. Ignis tried to keep calm and breathe through the pain, but her back was aching and twitching. She curled up on her side and reached for her phone, but fumbled with it when another contraction started just as she was unlocking the screen. It fell onto the floor as she let the first few tears fall. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Braxton Hicks were only supposed to be uncomfortable, and irregular. But it was getting to the point where she could tell one was about to happen. She waited until the contraction was over, and then grabbed her phone and went to the bathtub. If this was going to happen, she didn’t want her water to break on the bed. In the tub, she stripped out of her pants and underwear and placed her palm against her bump as another contraction hit; she could feel the uterine walls firming under her touch. 

_Dear Shiva this is happening._

She tried to dial Noctis and then Gladio, but got their voicemails. Prompto’s cell didn’t even connect. And she tried to send a text to all of them, but another contraction hit and she dropped her phone and it fell to the bottom of the tub. She clenched her jaw and shook her fists as she fought back screams. 

“Twenty thousand years of evolution,” she panted once it was over, “and only in the last five hundred has there been any sort of pain management. I can do this. I can do this. Vesper, my dear, we can do this–AH!”

Hours. For hours she sat in that tub, alone, crying, catching her breath when her body wasn’t trying to expel her child and screaming when the contractions hit. With every one gone by she felt more alone and scared. She had prepared for labor the way her obstetrician had told her it would go. A hospital bed, an epidural, watching the contractions on a monitor but not truly feeling them (nor, indeed, anything below her waist). Having Gladiolus stroking her hair on one side and Noctis on the other, holding the back of her neck and her knee while she pushed. Prompto won the right to cut the cord and would be helping the nurse and doctor by her hips. 

At some point her water broke and she cried harder. She couldn’t feel it break, it must have happened during a contraction, but the amniotic fluid was pooling around her feet before going down the drain. 

She needed to push.

“I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.”

The door opened, outside, and the voices of her boyfriends made her whimper with relief. “Iggy?”

“Bathroom! Gladio, Noct, Prom–” She cut herself off with a raspy yelp.

They burst through the door and all rushed to her side. Gladio was there, taking her hand and letting her squeeze as hard as she needed. Through the haze of pain, she was able to order the other two to grab towels and put them at the foot of the bed. “Baby, breathe,” Gladio prompted her gently, and she sobbed through an inhale. “We’ll take care of you, baby. It’s okay, we can do this.”

“I need to push,” she whimpered.

He pushed one of her knees up and said, “Then push. If she comes out, I’ll get her. But push if you need to.” 

She did. She grunted and pushed through the contraction, trying desperately to catch her breath once she had exhausted herself. Once it was over, she fell back and gasped, but didn’t stay there long. She said, “They’re coming so fast, Gladio, I don’t think–”

“We can do this. You focus on pushing, we’ll take care of the rest.”

“But I–”

“What, you think you were the only one who did any sort of labor research?” She looked up at him, confused, as he lifted her out of the tub. “I mean, come on, Prompto could probably take an MCAT with how much reading he’s done.” Sure enough, in the bedroom Prompto had already pulled over a chair to the edge of the bed and had gloves on. Beside him, Noctis was arranging pillows to prop her up, his phone to his ear. From what Ignis could hear, it sounded as though her obstetrician was speaking, but almost as soon as Gladio placed her down on the bed, another contraction hit and she grunted and sobbed through it.

Prompto placed his hands at the top of her belly and kept time with his phone next to her hip. His hands supplied steady pressure, pushing down gently to move the labor along in the direction the baby needed to go. Noctis placed the pillows behind her while Gladio picked her up, then they each took a side and held her knees up.

“C’mon, babe, you’re doing great,” Prompto said.

She cried. “How are all of you so calm???”

“Noct, once this contraction is done, I’m gonna need you to grab my emergency bag out of the car. Be fast, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

“Iggy, you need to relax as much as you can once it stops, okay?”

“Whichever one of you put this thing in me is never allowed to touch me with your dick again.”

“That’s our girl.”

“Noct, go.”

He was gone in a flash of blue light, though what he was using to warp was beyond what Ignis could determine. The contraction had stopped just after Prompto had finished speaking. She rested her head back and sobbed, her arm falling over her eyes. Gladio stepped away for a bit, too, and Prompto looked up at her over her waist. She muttered, “Don’t forget about the placenta.”

He laughed. “We won’t. We’ve got this, okay?”

“Another one’s coming.”

“Yeah, you’re in stage three labor, they’re gonna come a lot faster. Do you want me to give you your legs until the others come back?”

“I can’t take much more of this.”

“Iggy, you are the most amazing woman ever and if anyone can see this through to the end, it’s you. But hey, if you just can’t push anymore, I’ll push for you.”

“It’s coming.”

Prompto lifted her legs and wrapped her hands around her knees. “Go, babe. I’ve got you.”

She screamed.

* * *

 

Vesper Freja Scientia was born on the seventh of September at four o’clock in the afternoon, sharp. She weighed six pounds and fourteen ounces and was seventeen inches long. She came out screaming, a strong pair of lungs that made her Daddy, Gladio, begin to cry as he wrapped her in a towel and allowed her Papa, Prompto, to cut the cord. She was delivered into her Dad’s arms and Noct sat down beside Ignis and let the two meet face to face.

“Hello, Vesper,” she said. She took her daughter from Noctis and began to try to breastfeed her while, still between her legs, Prompto continued working. Ignis was euphoric and amazed by what she had made, what they had made. Noctis stayed beside the two of them while Gladio helped Prompto with whatever he needed. 

Later, they were joined by the Citadel’s obstetrician and a formation of Glaives, along with His Majesty and the Lord Shield. As soon as both mother and baby were determined healthy, Ignis’s tears stitched up, and Prompto given a verbal commendation for a successful delivery, the five of them were seen by Regis and Clarus. 

It was in Clarus’s arms that Vesper’s eyes were seen clearly for the first time.

“Brown eyes, huh?” He said, quirking an eyebrow at his son across the bed.

Ignis turned to Gladio and glared. “Never. Again.”

 


End file.
